Resident Evil Archives

Another idea seemingly designed to cause intense player distress was and is the typewriter save system, where picking up ink ribbons and using them sparingly becomes a fundamental part of the resource-management system. Likewise, a piddling amount of ammo, and underpowered weapons, leaves players scurrying around like frightened mice, desperately trying to conserve ammo for when it's really needed - such as the traumatic boss encounters.

Resident Evil Archives has all of these quirks and more, but no matter how much you'll damn the eyes of Shinji Mikami and all his relatives, it winds up being one of the most strangely compelling games ever. Just as with many horror titles (including recent PS3 horror RPG classic Demon's Souls), Resident Evil succeeds precisely because it's unforgiving, challenging and bloody scary. It's a game that forces you to learn through exploration and through failure, and you'll discover that failure is usually your own fault - and even when it isn't, you'll know better next time. Success is always sweet.

It's also a game with a heavy emphasis on puzzle-solving - something which has gone lamentably out of fashion in videogames of this generation, including Capcom's. When you first play Resident Evil (or any of the pre-2004 Resident Evil games, for that matter) you'll find yourself boxed into a relatively confined area, forced to explore every nook and cranny for items of interest. It's a game where making notes is pretty much compulsory, as the labyrinthine layout of the mansion and its surrounding area frequently teases you with locked doors and curious contraptions that you know full well will be important at some stage.

But this is a game that takes time to fully appreciate. The near vertical learning curve and confusing layout can take hours to come to terms with. Simple things like not realising you should set fire to zombie corpses can suddenly make the game extremely (and unnecessarily) tough. Progress can suddenly reawaken enemies you thought had croaked, and their transformation into much deadlier opponents forces you to waste ammo and health that you need later on when things get properly tricky. Again, learning the hard way might prove too frustrating for gamers used to modern day checkpointing and recharging health.

It's amazing how far apart this is from Resident Evil 5. That's not to say that Resident Evil is the better game, but for some gamers it may well be. The superb B-movie atmosphere, intriguing narrative and slower, brooding pace ensures the game takes far longer to unravel, but to get there takes a lot of care, a degree of trial-and-error and the Zen-like ability to deal with dated game mechanics. Once you get over the initial hump of dealing with those those controls again, it's completely absorbing.

Slowly unpicking all of the mansion's secrets becomes an obsession, and the lure of tempting unlockables means it's likely you'll be tempted to give it a second run-through as the other character. Clearly it's not for everyone, and many will remain baffled as to why a game with so many obvious jarring flaws gets so much love, but no one ever said enjoying games was a precise science. Sometimes odd recipes just work despite themselves, and that's definitely the case here.

In many other respects, though, the game's appeal is easier to quantify. The crisp, meticulously detailed pre-rendered environments are still a delight, and somehow stand up to the horrible effect that many large HDTVs have on older titles. Similarly, the detailed character models still do the job, while the trademark giant boss monsters are as terrifying as they ever were. Add in the menacing soundtrack and perpetually eerie groans of the infected zombie horde, and it becomes easier to see why Resident Evil still has an immense impact and relevance all these years on.